When county Democrats chose Bedford city manager and ex-police chief Robert Reid to be the county’s new sheriff last month, they were clearly going with the shaker and not the mover. They passed over the candidate who so many on both sides of the vote believed was the more obvious candidate for a county with so much swindle at its oft-rotten core: Clayton Harris, a police academy chief and ex-Cleveland police commander from Collinwood who vowed to actually start enforcing all the laws for everyone, from county boss Jimmy Dimora on down. It was a perfect measure for how the county’s balance of political power clearly tilts toward the cozy ’burbs and away from the ailing city. But how often does the better candidate lose out to the better ass-kiss? Apparently, more often than not.
Last December, as part of a push to streamline costs and services, county commissioners voted to merge the Cuyahoga County Board of Mental Health and the Board of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services of Cuyahoga County. The new model gets unveiled July 1.
The two final candidates to lead the new monster came from dramatically different backgrounds: Dr. Russell Kaye holds a PhD in experimental psychology and is the head of the county’s alcohol and drug abuse services, working locally for nearly two decades. Bill Denihan (pictured) is a well-connected Dem party animal with no direct experience before taking his job at the helm of the county’s mental-health board five years ago. He’s a former Cleveland safety director who also worked, in recent years, as the appointed leader of the county’s Department of Children and Family Services and the claims director for the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation.
So what does the new board do? They give the job to Denihan, of course, and they don’t even offer Kaye a chair on the new board. Jim Joyner, another top former board member who worked first as a drug counselor and then as training manager for the county drug board, was also left out of the new planning. Both men tendered their resignations.
